A particle has three degrees of freedom that describes its position.
A local event has four degrees of freedom that describes its spatial
position and its time.
An extended object has six degrees of freedom in space, including three
for the position of some marker point in the object (such as the center
of mass) and three more for the orientiation.

One way to think about it is this: given an assembly of three particles
which we'll call an object, how many numbers do you need to describe
where this object sits?